Many of those who have encountered installing or reinstalling Windows systems know that in most cases external media such as optical disks or USB drives are used to carry out this operation. If you try to run the installation file from the hard drive, the user will not get the desired result. Therefore, for Windows 7, installation from a hard disk should be performed using completely different methods. For the average user, there are five main options that we will discuss now.
Windows 7: installation from the hard drive. Installation options
So, we will consider some directions in the installation of the seventh version of the system. Among the main options are the following:
- installation on top of the old "seven";
- installation as a second OS;
- installation using the command line;
- use of special utilities;
- Installing the system on an external HDD.
Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages, however, for all of them, one common rule is to have an image of the installation distribution of the system, which you will have to work with later. In addition, if your computer already has created hard disk partitions, you can leave them alone when installing Windows 7. Otherwise, they will need to be created. But more on that later.
Preliminary information
Now let's look at some initial conditions that must be observed without fail during the installation of the system.
The system requirements are such that at least 16 GB of free disk space is required for a system with 32-bit architecture, and about 20 GB for an x64 system. And this provided that there is already an installed system, the directory of which, after installation, will be renamed to Windows.old. You can’t delete it manually by any means (unless you do a disk cleanup). Then it will just be impossible to roll back.
Installation on top of an old system
Using this technique, you immediately need to understand that formatting the hard drive during the installation of Windows 7 will not work, even if it is a system partition. But we will rely on the fact that the distribution is located on drive C when the partition is done. How to partition a disk will be discussed later.
As already understood, the downloaded distribution kit must first be placed on an independent partition (usually this is drive D). You can, of course, start the installation from it, but then errors will come out. Now just select the installation file Setup.exe from the Archive directory, followed by the installation of Windows 7, which is no different from the standard procedure.
In this case, for Windows 7, installation from the hard drive is more likely a means of updating system files, since the new configuration may inherit the old errors. It is not comfortable.
An alternative method to install Windows 7 as a second OS: what might be needed?
However, you can do otherwise. To install the system , a method is provided for installing it not on top of the existing OS, but as an additional OS, which can then be loaded when you select from the boot menu (Boot). The main thing is to create a boot partition in the source volume.
For all operations, you need only an application that can work with images and create virtual drives, and a utility that creates the MBR boot sector on the selected partition. As an example, we use Daemon Tools and EasyBCD.
Create Partition
It’s not possible to just download the installation distribution, even if it is located on the system drive. This is due only to the fact that the system itself does not recognize it, but, if it sees it, it sets a ban on downloading. Here you need to turn to the disk management section, which can be accessed through computer administration.
Fortunately, Windows 7, like all subsequent versions, has such a tool. First we look at the virtual partition D. We call up the menu and select the volume compression (the indicated size should slightly exceed the size of the distribution kit). Next, right-click on the menu and use the command to create a simple volume (without this, the system will not determine that this partition is operational).
How to break the hard drive when installing Windows 7, it is clear. We proceed to the most crucial part.
System installation
Now we are directly interested in installing Window 7. The hard disk systems are such that they still do not see the distribution.
We start the Daemon Tools program and mount the image using the appropriate command, indicating the path to the saved file. We copy it to the newly created partition (unpacked image file).
Now we launch the EasyBCD application and click the add record button, after which we indicate the WinPE tab at the bottom, and then enter “New volume” in the name field, and in the path bar determine the location of the boot.wim file.
After the record is added, just restart the computer or laptop. In this case, the standard “seven” installation starts.
Installing Windows 7 Using the Command Line
Again, this option cannot be applied when the initial system has damage or errors. But in the case of recovery will do.
When Windows starts, press the F8 key (the standard method unlike Windows 10) and select the troubleshooting line (the first in the list) from the menu. In the additional parameters, we specify the same thing, after which we use what we need in the language selection window and go to the system recovery, where we select the command line.
In the console, we write two lines:
- X: \> windows \ system32> E;
- E:> setup.exe
Do not be afraid to make a mistake. Drive letters in DOS and Windows do not match. In extreme cases, an error will simply be issued, after which it will be necessary to correct the corresponding symbol, but, as a rule, this is not required. Well, then the process starts, no different from the standard. Note that in this case, you do not even need to reboot the system.
Installation on top of any system using the BOOTICE utility
Now suppose we need another installation of Windows 7. There is a formatted hard drive. The catch is to create a bootable device as an HDD partition.
The BOOTICE utility was created in order to emulate the continuation of the installation of Windows 7, creating and overwriting the boot sector (there is a bootmgr folder in the unpacked distribution for this).
To start the installation, you need to change the boot record MBR to GRUB4DOS. But here you need to consider one feature. The fact is that the utility requires the creation of the name of the boot loader manager of no more than five characters (letters).
Rename the bootmgr file to GRLDR, and then run the utility itself. A new entry is immediately visible in the menu, so we put a checkmark (destination disk) there, and then press the change installation button and select save to disk in the configuration. It remains only to reboot the device, after which the installation of Windows 7 will be activated. Installation from the hard drive will follow immediately. As a rule, problems should not arise.
Install Windows 7 on an external hard drive
But, despite all the nuances of installing the "seven" on the hard drive, some users are trying to install the system on removable media, in particular USB-HDD. What to say? This is fundamentally wrong!
The question is: why create problems for yourself out of the blue? From any USB device, loading is much slower than from a hard drive. The external drive itself (Winchester) is subjected to more severe physical impact and is not immune from the appearance of failures and errors. Nevertheless, “especially gifted” users will have to use (at least) a virtual machine. And many of these “geeks” have no idea what it is.
Of course, for the rest we can say that any virtual emulation, for example, using WMWare or the same built-in Hyper-V module can be carried out quite simply. But the matter is not limited to automatic settings. Here you have to set the appropriate system configuration parameters. And all those who say that a virtual machine with the operating system installed in it can be created in a couple of clicks and in five minutes are absolutely wrong. Nothing like this!
Possible errors and failures
Now the saddest thing. What if the installation of Windows 7 does not see the hard drive? We do not consider issues of equipment failure in principle. An external hard drive must be enabled in the BIOS, as well as the priority of loading from the main device.
If you have problems with the file system, you can always use a command like sfc / scannow or chkntfs x / c (if partition C is selected as the system disk). Well, if the Winchester “sprinkled”, there's nothing to be done. Will have to change. Although ... Many experts advise first to use the HDD Regenerator program , which supposedly remagnetizes the surface of the disk, but one can hardly believe in such a method.
On the other hand, when installing the system on an external drive, you can’t do without utilities like ImageX included with the Windows AIK package. In addition, the PWBoot module does not recognize Cyrillic characters at all, but it works like a command line. So is it worth it to do?
And that's not all! When the selection of several simultaneous installations begins, you will have to choose between the standard VHD container format and a conventional removable device. It is believed that the VHD format is read faster, but the problem of enabling this type of media is precisely the use of BIOS settings. And when switching from BIOS to UEFI (which is not always supported), there can be much more problems. However, for Windows 7, installation can be done using any of the above methods. But formatting partitions in most cases will fail.
Thus, the conclusion suggests itself that the simplest is the ideal solution. The use of specific methods with the creation of boot sectors, the ordinary user will not use. It's obvious. But the system update technique looks much simpler, but it also has its drawbacks. In general, it is better to make a “clean” installation by first copying the necessary information to another medium.